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Questions about photo books you can create & order online...


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Have any of you ever created/ordered photo books online? If so, from where? Were you pleased with the quality?

 

We just got back from vacation & I was thinking it might be fun to make a small photo book for each of the dc. (Espeically since, in this day & age of digital photos, we keep all the photos online & rarely get them printed.)

 

Walgreen's has a 'purse photo book' that allows you to personalize the cover & captions. It is $6.99 for the first 20 pages, $1.99 for each 2 pages after that....

 

Advice, tips, & input are greatly appreciated. :) Thanks!

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Go for it. That's a good price, plus local so you may not have shipping.

 

I've used Shutterfly -- for several occasions and groups. For $10-15, it's a great way to celebrate a special occasion. You have fairly good control of the process of designing the pages and choosing colors.

 

Try to go with a background that's not too bright or pattern-y, subtle is better so it doesn't compete with your photos. Use the crop/edit options to trim out uninteresting backgrounds, enlarge people, etc. Play around til you get what you like. Shutterfly "suggests" a photo book sometimes, perhaps your place does similar -- that eliminates some of the work. Use the caption option if you have a number of people or something creative to say, but leave some photos without caption too. Alternate one larger photo with a collection of 2 or 3 or 4, so that pages don't get monotonous.

 

Or ... you could print it up just like a little mini photo-album, one photo per page stye.

 

Really, you can't go wrong. People love photos. Have fun!

:001_smile:

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I've done several with Shutterfly and been very happy with them. I also order calendars every year for my family and they look great and have a lot of options.

 

I ordered a 5x7 soft cover photo book as a brag book for dh's a couple of months ago and she loved it. It came out so well, I ordered one for my dmil and am getting them for my parents' birthdays. Perfect size to carry around. I just ordered an 8x8 book for my dmil's birthday of all of our shared vacations. I should be here this week so I can see how the size is. I've only ordered 12x12 before since that's my preferred size.

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LOVE Shutterfly. I've done photo books, holiday cards, graduation and graduation announcements with them. I have been VERY pleased with the quality of everything.

 

I've actually done a photo calendar and a photo book online with Wal Mart too and their quality was almost just as good and about half the price. I would certainly use them again. They do have fewer options then Shutterfly, so I use them when I'm trying to get something done quickly and don't want to get overwhelmed with all the beautiful choices, LOL.

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Other options:

 

Persnickety Prints - good quality and lots of sales/coupons available. This is the company I use for all my photo printing (I print off my digital pages). I'm not affiliated, just love their work.

 

MyPicTales - create your photobook online, not just uploading completed pages.

 

Artscow (this is from China, and shipping is slow, but they often have coupons for free books going). I've only ever ordered calendars from them, and were happy with how they turned out.

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I tried Shutterfly and they lost all the work I had done on a photo book - hours and hours of work. Ugh!

 

I tried the kodak site and that was very hard to figure out.

 

I finally used the Wal-Mart site. I loved how it saved the book automatically every 15 mins or so. That I could use all kinds of backgrounds. It was very easy to use. I got a huge hardcover 8 x 11 photo book for about $70. It had a lot of pages. Oh and you could put multiple photos per page.

 

Loved Wal-Mart. Plus they sent me a mini version of my photo book for free.

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I've really liked the quality from both sites. I use the one that has the best deal--they both have 'special offers' just about every week. Just after most holidays there will be at least a 30% off a photobook-- often you can get them for 50% off... I've made several and have NEVER paid full price!

 

When you sign up for either site you will get LOTS of free 4x6 pictures!

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Have any of you ever created/ordered photo books online? If so, from where? Were you pleased with the quality?

 

We just got back from vacation & I was thinking it might be fun to make a small photo book for each of the dc. (Espeically since, in this day & age of digital photos, we keep all the photos online & rarely get them printed.)

 

Walgreen's has a 'purse photo book' that allows you to personalize the cover & captions. It is $6.99 for the first 20 pages, $1.99 for each 2 pages after that....

 

Advice, tips, & input are greatly appreciated. :) Thanks!

 

 

 

I've used Shutterfly and Walgreens, and I was happy with both of them.

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I make mine through iPhoto on my Mac. I've actually only sent one to be printed so far (still have to add a few photos to the others), but they (two copies) turned out beautifully. Not sure how the price compares to others and I don't remember how much I ended up paying (about $35 per book, I think). They were hardcover. The one thing I don't like is you can only put up to 100 pages in a book which can be annoying if you take tons of pics. But there are several layouts you can choose from and lots of fonts.

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I've ordered through Picaboo and LOVED the results. Last year they did a FREE 20 page 8x10 book and I jumped on it. I made one of our Disney Mediterranean cruise and it turned out beautifully! I ordered my mom a smaller (5x7) version that I had to pay for ($20??) and she loves it (because it has loads of photos of Indy). I got it in less than 7 days and that's coming to an APO address. They frequently have good sales, so I'd check their site. I know I'll be making more after Han Solo is born.

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